Indus Crocodile Religion as seen in the Iron Age Tamil Nadu

 Dr. Nagamanickam Ganesan

Houston, Texas, USA

Abstract:  This article is about some aspects of Indian religion in the Post-Harappan period providing a link to the Indus Valley Civilization seen in its Bronze Age seals. The meaning of the anthropomorphic axes found in the Indo-Gangetic doab plains of the Second Millennium BC as a ritual symbol of a Makara (crocodile) god will be presented. The characteristic fish sign pointing to the Dravidian language spoken by the elite Harappans has long been explored from the days of Fr. H. Heras, SJ. However, the importance of crocodiles in IVC culture is recently coming to light (A. Parpola, 2011). When this Crocodile cult disappears and gets forgotten in North India, it appears as large monolithic sculptures in the megalithic South. An interpretation of the Tamil Brahmi inscription at Tirupparaṅkuṉṟam, near the ancient Pandyan capital Madurai, discovered by History department, Pondicherry University will be offered as mentioning the crocodile god and his spouse. The Aśvamedha sacrifice on the banks of a Water Tank was performed for a crocodile as evidenced in Pāndyan Peruvaḻuti and Chera coins. Graffiti symbols from Sāṇūr and Sūlūr as linguistic sign for the crocodile deity, and the crocodile couple in Adichanallur burial urn (500 BCE) along with the battle-axe bearing great god in Sangam poetry will be used to illustrate the prevalence of the crocodile based religion until the Early Sangam period. The first stone sculpture made in south India at such places as Mottur, Udaiyarnatham, - monumental in size, over ten feet tall -, in the Iron Age will be linked to the earlier metallic Anthropomorphic Axes in the Yamuna-Gangetic doab, found in many Post-Harappan Ochre Colored Pottery sites of North India. This article will include etymology of Dravidian names such as Viṭaṅkar, Nakar, Ghaṛiāl, Makara, Karā for the three species of Indian crocodiles. Finally, an interpretation of Gudimallam Viṭaṅkar (Liṅgam) as Varuṇa, rather than as Śiva assumed by earlier scholars like A. K. Coomaraswamy, is offered. In the subsequent Pallava period, development of Tantric Śaivism includes the tantric term Viṭaṅkar applied more broadly for the forms of Śiva like naked Bhikṣāṭana and Somāskanda.

This paper was published in the Proceedings of the 16th World Sanskrit Conference, held in Bangkok, Thailand, 2016.